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Nineteen
On the drive home from his family’s house, Presley chatted about his brothers and how good his parents’ cooking tasted. Cash seemed a million miles away, giving one-word answers rather than committing to conversation.
She didn’t want to leave town on a low note, but she was leaving in less than twelve hours, so that was a definite possibility. She was fairly certain he was still upset with her for contacting Heather, and honestly, Presley understood why. What she’d done hadn’t been nefarious or calculated, but it’d been a breach of trust.
Hopefully by the time she left he would be able to forgive her for it.
At his house, he parked in the garage and rounded the sleek sports car to open her door for her. She followed him into the kitchen, intending to revisit the conversation they’d started at his family’s house. She couldn’t let him even consider rewriting “Back for Good.” She forbade it. It was his best work and she should know. She was a Cash Sutherland superfan from way back. From before he was The Cash Sutherland.
Rather than put off this discussion another second, she faced him and asked, “Do you believe me?”
He tossed the car keys on the counter and then ran a hand through his hair. “About what?”
“About me not writing about who inspired ‘Lightning.’ I mean, I still don’t know who inspired it, but if I did, the secret would be safe with me. I promise not to mention Carla or Heather.”
He watched her for so long, she wasn’t sure if he’d fallen asleep with his eyes open, or zoned out while thinking of something else. Either of those possibilities would have been more expected than what came next.
He closed the gap between them, leveled his eyes with hers by bending slightly and hugged her neck with one palm. “I wrote ‘Lightning’ after I left FSU. I wrote it about the shot I could have had if I hadn’t left behind the woman I loved. I wrote it, Presley Cole, about you.”
Lost in his dark, penetrating gaze, especially since he hadn’t moved so much as an inch away from her, she had to blink to break the spell. His expression bordered on agonized and she felt similar. She had no witty response in her toolkit to deal with his admission.
“M-me?”
“We had something then, but I was too young and stupid to see it. I had big dreams and goals and I couldn’t handle being in love and pursuing those dreams. I was too tangled up in my own circumstances. In one fell swoop I erased the possibility of a football career, dropped out of college and left Florida for Tennessee. Left you. In short, Pres, I fucked up. And that’s what ‘Lightning’ is about. We had a shot. I blew it.”
With a sigh, he stopped touching her and walked away. She watched him unlock one of the French doors and step outside. Numbly, she struggled to wrap her feeble mind around what he’d told her. He...loved her back then?
She’d listened to “Lightning” on the radio every time she’d come across it, and that song got a ton of airplay. She knew every word. She’d cranked it and sang along loudly, often with the top off her Jeep. She’d bobbed her head to the music while she sat at her desk with her headphones on. She’d ached over those lyrics, remembering how she’d felt about him back then and lamenting that she hadn’t touched him as deeply. More than once she’d wished “Lightning” was about her. Wished that Cash had felt an iota of what he felt for the mystery woman in the song.
And now he was saying she was the mystery woman who’d inspired it?
He’d written a love song about lightning striking once, yet here she stood. In his house, hours away from leaving for Florida, and completely, irrevocably in love with him yet again.
And apparently, he was content to let her leave.
She yanked the door open and marched out to the dock, where Cash stood, silently staring out at the lake. Clouds hung low in the sky, and without the help of stars and the moon, the water appeared murky black.
“Weather’s clearing up tomorrow,” he said without turning around. “You should have decent roads for traveling out of the mountains. Are you going straight through or will you stop for an overnight on the way down?”
Instead of responding to his irritatingly detached words, she stated, “You weren’t in love with me in college.”
He faced her, his arms crossed, his expression neutral. So, she went on.
“When you broke up with me, you told me you were leaving everything behind in Florida, including me. You told me I’d be okay because we’d never been serious. You told me you had fun with me and that you hoped I didn’t regret the time I spent with you.”
Time they’d spent being intimate but never going past the point of no return. Time they’d spent together not having sex, which she sometimes believed was the reason he’d been able to walk away without looking back.
“You had no regrets, Cash.” Her voice shook. She almost needed that to be true. The alternative was unbelievable. “I spent the entire next year wishing I would have slept with you, wondering if you would have stayed with me then. And now you’re telling me your most popular love song is about me?”
“I had regrets, Presley. You didn’t corner the market on those.” His stubborn jaw was set. “I wrote about them in that song.”
She replayed the lyrics in her head. The part about his walking away when he knew lightning struck only once. About not being able to catch lightning in a bottle so he’d had to let it go. The part about how he’d never have again what he’d found all those years ago.
“I was in love with you back then,” she said, not willing to admit she was now, too.
“I know.” She could read the regret in his features. It glowed like the neon in a sign.
“And you’re saying...you loved me, too? But you didn’t stick around. You didn’t tell me. You let me believe I was this...this...silly, naïve girl who fell in love with a guy who didn’t give a damn about me!”
